[aaggoswami]

I dont know why, but as warned earlier, IE8 is not able to open many website perfectly. I could find out this when I was running around internet searching for online C# tutorials.

[Harbir]

Originally Posted by Samurai

Interesting views, would you like to elaborate on the EAI (enterprise application integration) stengths of Firefox? If firefox plug-ins can be integrated as tightly as ActiveX plug-ins to the client PC, I would be interested.

I can't comment on that as I am a user and neither a programmer, nor an enterprise personal computing service provider.

Suffice to say, for my use, Firefox just destroys IE. The extensions I use:

-Autocopy
-CustomiseGoogle
-Download Statusbar
-Download Helper
-DragandDropupload
-FireFTP
-Fission
-Foxclocks
-Noscript
-Adblock Plus
-Session Manager
-Tab Mix Plus
- TabScope

With all those installed, plus all the customization possible with them, Firefox is such a killer expereince that for me, IE border on being worthless, something I will use ONLY if firefox is unavailable, such as on my work PC. Otherwise firefox it is.

If IE reaches the same level of open source customizability of Firefox, I'd be happy to use it instead of Firefox.

[blue_pulsar]

Don't you guys miss the status bar on the chrome? I guess Google should have not ignored that

[Ketan]

Originally Posted by aaggoswami

I dont know why, but as warned earlier, IE8 is not able to open many website perfectly. I could find out this when I was running around internet searching for online C# tutorials.

Have you tried looking at the security settings? Also, the compatibility settings is one more thing that you can tweak around to make some of the websites / website content working.
I have found IE8-Beta2 is much better than other IE versions.

I shall try to use firefox, dont have much idea about using extensions though, let me see how that goes.

[ac 427]

Dear all,

Am currently using a browser that is even faster than Google Chrome, yes its our old firefox.

Find below the link :
Index of /pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/latest-trunk

link to download the Minefield.

Cheers
AC

[BaCkSeAtDrIVeR]

Originally Posted by Samurai

Interesting views, would you like to elaborate on the EAI (enterprise application integration) stengths of Firefox? If firefox plug-ins can be integrated as tightly as ActiveX plug-ins to the client PC, I would be interested.

What exactly is the advantage of "integrating" the browser plugins to the PC? Mind elaborating on the concept of EAI?

Pardon my ignorance, but I am just a (l)user!!

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by BaCkSeAtDrIVeR

What exactly is the advantage of "integrating" the browser plugins to the PC? Mind elaborating on the concept of EAI?

Sorry, too vast a subject to cover it lightly. EAI has to be experienced, can't be just explained. It is like no-ABC in offroading.

[typeOnegative]

Originally Posted by Samurai

Interesting views, would you like to elaborate on the EAI (enterprise application integration) stengths of Firefox? If firefox plug-ins can be integrated as tightly as ActiveX plug-ins to the client PC, I would be interested.

If it is purely J2EE, then it should not be a problem. Anything that has a Microsoft flavor will cause all browsers except IE to under-perform. In any case, pardon my ignorance (I was a J2EE guy a long time back), but I thought the shift was away from ActiveX.

[tarunmadhok]

Originally Posted by rrs1951

I have tried Chrome, but Firefox remains my first preference.

Firefox is the best all over but now Google Chrome is also doing well. it is faster also.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by typeOnegative

If it is purely J2EE, then it should not be a problem. Anything that has a Microsoft flavor will cause all browsers except IE to under-perform. In any case, pardon my ignorance (I was a J2EE guy a long time back), but I thought the shift was away from ActiveX.

May be business applications, our EAI deals mainly with enterprise telephony E1/T1, IVRs, voice loggers, etc. Therefore we can't use third party EAI platforms, we write our own in C++, so ActiveX is a natural choice.

[austere_sly]

Not sure, if this thread is the right place, but still going ahead. I was using Google Browser Sync (GBS) to sync bookmarks and passwords till July 2008 when Firefox 3 was launched. Apparently Google decided to discontinue GBS and since that day I have not been able to find an alternate for GBS. There was some wave made by weave but even after so many tried I have not been able to register with them.

[ballkey]

Originally Posted by Samurai

May be business applications, our EAI deals mainly with enterprise telephony E1/T1, IVRs, voice loggers, etc. Therefore we can't use third party EAI platforms, we write our own in C++, so ActiveX is a natural choice.

This is off-topic, but I've not seen the acronym "EAI" used in this context. EAI is about integrating business applications, I'm not sure why a browser should have EAI strengths.
Enterprise application integration - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As another software architect, I'm curious why you would need to write ActiveX plugins for telephony software - apart from some gains in software distribution. Surely the security risks out-weigh the benefits? Or is it just legacy stuff that's too critical to replace?

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by ballkey

This is off-topic, but I've not seen the acronym "EAI" used in this context. EAI is about integrating business applications, I'm not sure why a browser should have EAI strengths.

Lots of business applications run on browsers these days.

Originally Posted by ballkey

As another software architect, I'm curious why you would need to write ActiveX plugins for telephony software - apart from some gains in software distribution.

In call centers, often the agents are running web applications provided by the outsourcing customer. Those customer applications are in no way integrated to the call center environment, like a sandbox. This often forces the agent to type in all the collected data manually. Here, ActiveX becomes very useful. It can populate all the call data automatically into the web application form the very moment the agent picks up the call.

Originally Posted by ballkey

Surely the security risks out-weigh the benefits?

Actually, that is a funny comment. What risk? They are running a piece of software (a signed plug-in installed by the operations team) specially developed for their needs. We are not dealing with some unknown plugin downloaded from the Internet. If they don't want to run it as ActiveX, then they will be running it as standalone application. In Enterprise environment, activeX plugins are used as an alternate to standalone windows apps. The former is easier to version control and distribute. In addition, activeX can directly access/manipulate web forms making it very easy to integrate with customers apps that have painful interfaces.

[ballkey]

Business applications are *delivered* through browsers nowadays yes. But EAI is about application-to-application integration; it has nothing to do with how apps are delivered. Obviously I don't know what your software does, so I'll buy the argument that it's EAI.

I don't see the funny part in the other comment. There's a reason why Microsoft disabled ActiveX in the enhanced-security IE; leaving it open is a risk. I understand that in a tightly-controlled environment, it's possible to keep it running, and in software such as yours, it may make sense. I still wouldnt recommend it for a new development exercise, there are tons of alternatives.
And I wouldnt judge a browser by its capability to run plugins that can access all system resources(or the lack of it). There are much better yardsticks like standards compliance, Javascript performance, rendering speed, responsiveness etc

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by ballkey

But EAI is about application-to-application integration; it has nothing to do with how apps are delivered.

Isn't that what I explained? We integrate end customer's business apps with our customer's business apps and as well as IVRs and voice loggers and payment gateways, etc.

Originally Posted by ballkey

I understand that in a tightly-controlled environment, it's possible to keep it running, and in software such as yours, it may make sense.

Enterprise environment is generally tightly controlled, rarely seen it otherwise. These guys can't even change their desktop wallpaper.

Originally Posted by ballkey

I still wouldn't recommend it for a new development exercise, there are tons of alternatives.

I wouldn't make such assumptions without knowing the environment.

Originally Posted by ballkey

There are much better yardsticks like standards compliance, Javascript performance, rendering speed, responsiveness etc

In my world, customers ask us to screen scrape data from ancient web apps or even 3270 terminals. Our version of EAI often involves integrating apps from different decades. We rarely ever get to work in homogeneous environment.